Pop and circumstance

Get into the groove: Madonna mania is about to hit (again). The Material Girl's first world tour for eight years arrives in Britain this week continuing a series of sell-out concerts expected to earn £20m in ticket sales.

After playing Barcelona, Milan, Berlin and Paris, the 42-year-old American singer will fill Earls Court with thousands of fans, 100 tonnes of equipment, 12 dancers and backing vocalists and a new set which includes an oversize bed and involves her riding a mechanical bull.

But the singer, who has repeatedly reinvented her public image, returns to the live stage at the same time as a new biography by Andrew Morton threatens to swing the spotlight on to her private life. She has reportedly instructed friends not to talk to the author.

Madonna has always guarded her privacy; no pictures have been published of her wedding last December to the British film director Guy Ritchie at Skibo Castle in Scotland. Even an amateur cameraman who sneaked into Dornoch Cathedral and hid in the organ to film the private christening of her baby, Rocco, was eventually intercepted by her security guards and the tape destroyed.

Coincidentally, Madonna has lent her support to the BBC which is preparing a documentary entitled There's Only One Madonna. The programme features interviews with celebrities such as Stella McCartney and Jean-Paul Gaultier as well as other singers such as Britney Spears and Kim Wilde.

Barbara Charone, Madonna's publicist, was reported to have said at the weekend that she approved of the BBC project because England "was one of the first places she became really big in". She added: "She is one of the biggest stars in the whole world and people react to that."

According to her official website tickets for the first Earls Court show on Wednesday sold out in 15 minutes and before the end of the day a total of 97,000 for the six gigs had all gone. The demand was so great that extra tickets went on sale last month.

The last British performance is on July 12. During the show Madonna plays electric guitar and flies through the air on a trapeze wire. Her costumes include a punk-inspired kilt - reputedly in honour of her husband's Scottish ancestry.

The title of her latest expedition, Madonna's Drowned World Tour 2001, is not thought to refer to the flood of CDs, posters and memorabilia that she continues to pump out into the ever thirsty rock and pop market.